


Making Noise

by FabulaRasa



Category: DCU, DCU (Animated)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 14:23:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3732145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FabulaRasa/pseuds/FabulaRasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce likes Hal's sex noises. Really, really likes them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Noise

Bruce Wayne had made many investigative discoveries over the years that had pleased him, but none brought him profounder or more lasting pleasure than discovering that Hal Jordan was a moaner. 

The man made a lot of noise at the best of times, so he could have figured that sex would be no different. What he could not have figured—what surprised him beyond all reckoning—was how much he enjoyed hearing it. 

"Oh God, yeah," Hal had gasped in his ear, the first time they were together. Just a throaty exhalation of sound, nothing but a small murmur against the side of his face, but Bruce had had to pause because for a fraction of a second—for the barest second—he had been afraid he might come, just from that. He had felt Hal's quiet gasp down in his aching balls, and they hadn't been doing anything more than making out. Well, a little bit more; they had definitely started to grind a bit. That was when Hal had murmured _oh God yeah_ , in that voice that went straight to Bruce's cock.

He had kissed Hal's lips so hard after that, trying to taste more of those delicious noises Hal was making—not loud annoying sounds, or fake bad-porno moans, but beautiful, real, guttural words that were just for him. Never anything long or involved or (worst of all, because he had suffered through that from previous partners) artfully composed dirty talk, self-consciously intended to turn him on. Hal's noises weren't intended to do anything. It wasn't anything like that, with Hal. He probably wasn't even aware he was doing it. But every few minutes, while they were making out (or more) Hal would gasp or groan or put his mouth near Bruce's ear and say. . . he didn't even know what. Things that drove him wild, that made his cock rub so hard against Hal's, that quickened his breath and tightened his throat and made his balls pulse with come. Things he couldn't even remember afterward: "God baby, yes," or "That's it, come on," or "Nnnnggh, that's it, fuck yeah."

Even better were the noises he made without words. 

Most of the time, people who moaned during sex made Bruce want to smother them with a pillow. Once he had actually had to stop during sex with some person whose name he didn't now remember to say, "Can you please stop doing that." Unsurprisingly, sex hadn't really picked up again after that. People got unreasonably touchy about that sort of thing. 

But Hal's noises. . . they weren't anything like that. For one thing, they weren't even that loud. They were more like exhalations, catches of breath, low soft groans that shuddered Bruce's spine. But he could tell exactly where Hal was, on the rocket ride to orgasm, from those noises. He learned to read the noises, to decode the particular pitch of moan that would tell him Hal had gone from "okay, this feels pretty good" to "holy shit I am going to come in six more seconds." And they were all, all unbelievably erotic. Hal's mouth got him hot no matter what it was doing, apparently, whether it was licking and sucking him to mind-melting orgasm or whispering things in his ear or grunting as pleasure pulled him under. It was all the same for Bruce; it was all scorchingly, improbably, addictingly hot.

Because addicted was what he was, there was no question about it. 

"I like it when you make noise," Bruce murmured once, into his ear, and he could hear the smirk in Hal's voice when he said, "Do you now." 

They hadn't said any more about it, but a few days later there had been a call on his cell while he was at the office. He had looked at it for a second, frowning. Hal had not called him during the day before. And it was Hal, not the Green Lantern; if it was League business he would have used the communicator. _Something's wrong_ , he had thought, with a cold clench in his throat, and he had grabbed up his phone.

"What is it," he had said, knowing he sounded angry, but it was that or let Hal hear the anxiety in his voice, the fear. 

"Just wondering if you had a minute," Hal said, his voice easy, obviously unperturbed by Bruce's tone. Bruce took a second to collect himself, to let himself feel the flood of _he's okay, everything's all right_.

He didn't know what to do about this growing certainty he had, that something terrible was going to happen to Hal. _Terrible things happen to people I care about_ , he had said a few weeks ago to Dinah. _It's starting to affect my decisions, out in the field. It's becoming a problem._

She had cocked her head at him. _What's changed?_ she said. 

He had sat there in silence. _I've been seeing someone_ , he finally said. He hadn't known he was going to say it. He certainly hadn't intended to say it. The silence in the room had rested there, and she hadn't broken it. Hadn't asked him who. She wouldn't ask that sort of thing. 

_You've dated plenty of people_ , she said, after a few more scribbles on her pad. _None of them have ever affected you in the field. Why is this different?_

And to that, he had truly found nothing to say. _It isn't exactly dating_ , he could have said, and that would have been the truth, because he didn't really know what the word for it was. Frantic, hungry sex, overpowering need, physical addiction. And he found nothing to say because the reason this was affecting him, and the others hadn't, was that he was seeing someone in the League, someone whose life was regularly in danger. But he couldn't tell her that, not without giving away more than he intended to. So again he had sat in silence. 

"You there?" said Hal's warm voice on the line, and Bruce swallowed down his anxiety and the masking anger and the memory of his conversation with Dinah. 

"Yeah," he said. 

"Good. Because I was—" a noise like Hal stretching, and would you listen to that, the lazy bastard had just woken up— "was thinking, about that conversation we had the other day."

"Narrow it down, if you don't mind," he said, and nodded at his secretary as she came in, distributing some papers on his desk, adding some things to the sign pile, taking some things away, organizing others in her folder. 

"Okay, sure," Hal said on a yawn. "You, me, that chair in your penthouse, you're sitting in it, I'm riding your cock like it's my job. Ringing any bells?"

"I think so, yes. Just those, leave those others."

"Who's that? Is that your secretary with you?"

"Yes, that is the case."

"Excellent," and he could hear the grin in Hal's voice, and another lazy stretch. "So this conversation. You remember what you said?"

"I could probably stand to review those minutes at our next meeting."

"You said you liked it when I made noise."

"Really."

"Mm hm. And so I was thinking—" another audible stretch, the man was like a cat when he woke up in the mornings, or afternoons more like—"I just woke up, and as it turns out I have got this unbelievably raging boner, and I was thinking I might just have myself a nice morning jack-off here, but then I thought, hey, Bruce is probably just hanging out, nothing really going on, he might like a front row seat, you know? Especially since I'm feeling kind of. . . noisy this morning, if you know what I mean."

"Tell you what," Bruce said. "If you just leave the rest of those, I can take care of them after lunch."

"Aw," Hal said. "You're spoiling my fun. I kind of liked the idea of making you hard in front of your secretary."

"Not possible," he said.

"Because you don't get stiffies in front of the help? Or because you already are?"

"The latter, in point of fact. Yes, that stack, but not those. Leave it, that's fine," he said to Janine, rather more brusquely than he intended. 

"I'm already stroking it," Hal said, and Bruce's throat dried, closed. "I was lying here debating whether I should call you, so I had all that time to just get harder."

"You made the right choice," he said around his tight throat.

"It's gonna be fast, is what I'm trying to say."

"That works for me," he said. He was still speaking like Janine was in the room, for some reason. 

"Fuck—God, it feels so good," Hal said, his voice gone low and a little breathy, and then he gave this soft groan. Bruce listened to the quickening pace of his breathing. There was nothing but Hal's soft grunts on the other end of the line, the low vocalization of his pleasure. He didn't dirty talk through it or anything like that. He just let Bruce listen to the uncensored quiet noises of his pleasure, as if he were there in the bed with him.

"Not gonna last," he whispered. "Jesus I wish you were here. I—" and then a stuttered, shuddering groan, in which Bruce could almost hear the spasms, the choke of it in his throat as he came.

There was nothing on the line but Hal's breathing, slowing now. He would be wiping his hand, his stomach. "That was good," he said, a little slurred. Bruce was so hard he was afraid to move. He didn't see how he could move. He had spun in his chair so he was facing the wide window, spread his legs to have a little more room, but the thought of moving—

"You still there?" Hal said. He was still a little bleary. 

"Yes," Bruce managed.

"You hard for me?"

"Yes."

"You like those noises?"

He tried to say yes, he really did. It was just that his throat was not obeying him in the ways it was supposed to. He stumbled up and made it to his washroom, and closed and locked the door. Hal must have heard the sound of the lock.

"You somewhere private now?"

"Yes."

"How about you let me listen?"

"I—" He didn't know how to do what Hal had done. But he had to get a hand on himself or he would explode. He unzipped himself, as carefully as he could—he was so hard. He stroked himself, desperate, hating how he must sound. But he couldn't stop. The noises Hal had made. . .

He jerked himself fast and hard, and he came over his hand and into the marble sink with a groan that echoed off the tiled walls. It was an embarrassing, animal sound, and he was immediately chagrined at it. He leaned his head against the mirror and tried to slow his breathing.

"Holy fucking goddamn," came the slow voice on the other end. "Bruce."

The way Hal said his name, it was almost. . . almost. . . sometimes he was certain he would find the word for it. "I need—need to see you," he gasped. 

"Tonight," Hal said. "Can we do tonight?"

"No," Bruce said roughly. "I need—" And how to say what he needed? _I need to see you sooner than that, I need my arms around you, my mouth on yours, I need, I need, I need_. He swallowed.

"I'm leaving the office early this afternoon," he said, controlling himself. "We could meet sooner."

"We can't keep doing this," Hal said, and the long slow knife of that in his chest, the excruciatingly careful motion of it. Bruce shut his eyes, because of course, of course. His hand was still wet with his own come. He hadn't even wiped himself yet.

"We can't keep being apart like this," Hal continued, and Bruce opened his eyes. "It's fucking killing me. Is it any different for you?"

"No," Bruce managed. His head was still leaning against the mirror, his softening cock hanging out, his hand sticky with come. He was so many clicks beyond _we have a problem here_ that it wasn't even a goddamn joke. 

"Three-thirty," Bruce said. "At the penthouse. I'll see you there."

* * *

"Why is this different?"

It was her question from last time, the one he hadn't answered. "I don't know," he said, which was exactly the truth. The truth, and not the truth.

"You don't have to tell me," she said. "It's not an interrogation. I was just curious."

"Because it's a man," he said. A partial truth would do, and it would keep her occupied for a while.

"Okay," she said. "So you haven't dated a man before?"

He was silent, weighing that one, remembering the first time with Hal. They had made it to the bed, and Hal was stretched on top of him, grinding hard, pulling at Bruce's clothes. _Tell me what you like_ , he had groaned, in between frantic kisses, and Bruce had just looked at him. _I don't know_ , he had said, and that had stilled Hal instantly.

_What do you mean you don't know?_

_I mean. . . I don't have that kind of experience._

The look on Hal's face had been hard to read. Hal's hand had stroked his upper arm. _Okay_ , he had said. _All right. So what say we just find out what you like, okay?_

Dinah was watching him. "No," he said, in answer to her question. "Not. . . as such. When I was. . . younger."

"How young?"

_Shhh will you keep your voice down you are going to get us so busted._

_Don't be an idiot, no one comes down to this boathouse before five, just, come on—_

_So busted_ , but it was said with a warm laugh. _The things I do for you._

"In school," he said, hoping she would leave it at that. School could mean anything. School could mean Princeton. 

She was doodling on her pad again. "You don't have to not say it," she said. "I mean, I appreciate the scrupulous attempt to avoid Oliver's name, but this is not exactly news to me, nor is it somehow traumatizing to contemplate my husband's teenage romances."

"Well," he said. "I'm sure his technique has improved."

"I'm sure it hasn't," she said, with a slow smile. "So this is different because it's a guy, and that hasn't happened since you were young, or you haven't let it happen. Why is that?"

"Harder to control." She glanced up at that, like it was the first interesting thing he'd said all afternoon. She tapped her pen against her teeth.

"So, sex with women. That's an aspect of your sexuality that is easier for you to control, that is less likely to. . . entangle you?"

"Something like that."

"So what made you change your mind, this time? With this particular guy, I mean?"

"He. . . I'm not sure I did. It was not a conscious choice. At every point I've told myself I could stop."

"And now?"

"Now I'm not sure I can stop. I'm not sure I can summon the strength of will. I tell myself that I can, but I end up. . . right back where I was. I'm not sure I see the way out any more."

She was looking at him oddly. "You and the Hallmark cards," she said.

"What?"

"Nothing. It's just, I don't think I've ever heard anyone describe emotions as negatively as you do. You just described your relationship as a kind of drug addiction — a relationship, I should point out, that seems to have had nothing but positive effects on you so far. And yet you describe it like some sort of moral failing. Bruce. Are you a homophobe?"

He considered the question. "Not particularly. But in my life, staying clear of romantic and emotional entanglement is prudent. I prefer the term, emotionally avoidant."

"You have a gift for understatement. I just can't help but wonder — a lifetime of carefully staying away from sex with men, and then this happens."

"Sometimes contingency plans fail." 

"So this represents a failure, on your part." 

"That isn't what I meant."

"Then say one positive thing about this relationship."

"I. . ." He studied his pants, his hands folded, resting there. Why did he keep coming here? No one made him. Dinah wouldn't stop giving Leslie scrips to fill if he stopped showing up. And his appointments were erratic anyway — he might go weeks without showing up, but she never said a word about it when he finally did walk through the door, and he suspected she wouldn't say anything if he just never showed up again. Which meant he was sitting here for reasons that eluded him. He was sitting here because nothing he ever said in this small room (and it was a small room because her other duties never left her enough time to turn her practice into a real money-making concern) went anywhere beyond these walls, and because his trust in her was absolute, and because if he didn't have just this one small ill-decorated space in which to say these things, his psyche might truly take a turn for the worse. Because he knew enough of what real darkness looked like, and he never wanted to be there again.

And because if he couldn't say these things here, where could he say them?

"Noise," he said, and she looked up, staring at him. "He makes noise."

"I don't really—"

"When my parents died, everything went very quiet. The house. . . was quiet. Alfred never makes noise, Alfred's life work is moving silently in and out of rooms. But everything became very. . . quiet. My life became. . . quiet. And I like quiet, I appreciate quiet. I need quiet in which to think. But sometimes. . . I had forgotten, is what I'm trying to say, about the pleasure of noise. Dick. . ." He swallowed. It was more talking than he was used to doing. 

"When Dick came into my life, he brought the same kind of noise, the same kind of life. But this is different. Hal is too bright, and too loud, and too full of everything I've spent a lifetime avoiding, and I'm fairly sure that for once I. . ." 

He trailed off in appalled silence. He shut his eyes.

It was because it was such a safe place. That was why he had made such an unbelievable, unforgivable mistake. He came into this room, and he dropped every guard, every pretense. But it was an indulgence he could not afford. There were too many secrets that depended on his silence, too many lives. It was one thing to make a mistake in this room, but if it were possible here, it might just be possible somewhere else. It was the only mistake like that he had ever made, but it only took one. 

"It's not like I didn't know," Dinah said gently.

He rose. "I need to go. Thank you for your time."

"Bruce. Please don't. You don't have to—"

But he was already on the stairs outside her office, moving quickly.

* * *

"Okay," Hal said. He was squinting like he was trying to see something outlined against a too-bright sky, but it was only Bruce standing by the penthouse window, and the day was gray and overcast. "All right. Even for your bipolar ass, this is a bit of a one-eighty from six hours ago. Mind if I ask what the hell happened?"

"Nothing happened."

"I see, that explains everything."

"I don't owe you an explanation." He could see the look on Hal's face at that, and he wanted to wince and avert his eyes, but that would have been cowardly.

"Aren't you just a piece of work," Hal said. "No you don't owe me an explanation, but I'll admit, I did think I would get better than _we're done now_. Guess that was setting the bar too high, huh. What the fuck ever." 

He was reaching for his jacket and shrugging it on, and Bruce's insides twisted and writhed, his chest constricted past the point of breath. He knew his face was as bland and unreadable as ever. Hal had to brush past him to get to the hallway and the elevator, and he really ought to move aside, but his limbs were not currently obeying him. "Hal," he said, just a small strangled involuntary noise, and his fingers were on Hal's wrist, which he hadn't known was going to happen. Hal was looking at the fingers.

"Get your hand off me, you son of a bitch," Hal said evenly, and Bruce obeyed. 

"You would have died," Bruce choked out, as Hal was halfway to the elevator. He hadn't known he was going to say that either. Had he lost all ability to exercise control? What was happening to him? Hal was turning and looking at him.

"I would have _died_ ," he said, incredulous. "Now I understand why you never got your kids a dog. You probably wouldn't even take home any of those goldfish from the fair, huh, because what's the point, it's all just going to end in death. Listen to me, you self-absorbed asshole, there's a hell of a lot worse than death out there, and it's time you wrapped your head around that. Of course I'm going to _die_ , I fight space monsters with imaginary laser beams, did you somehow think this was a recipe for a long and peaceful life? And look at you, Jesus Christ—your number's probably coming up sooner than mine, and if either of us hits fifty it will be a fucking miracle, what the hell did you _think_ was gonna happen?"

"Because of me," Bruce said.

"Because of _you_ ," Hal said, just as incredulous.

"You would have died because of me. I betrayed you today."

Hal was silent. He put his hands on his hips, studying the polished marble of the floor. Then he crossed his arms and studied Bruce. "Okay," he said. "How?"

"I. . . spoke your name to someone I shouldn't have. I revealed our relationship."

Hal was frowning now. He had the same _I am honestly trying to figure this out_ look on his face from before, from when Bruce had walked in while Hal was stretched on the sofa and announced, _This needs to be over_.

"Ever since we started—this," Bruce said, stumbling for a second over the word, "I have known that something was going to happen to you. That you were in danger. That something terrible was going to happen. And I was right, but I hadn't yet understood that _I_ am the terrible thing. If being with you makes me lower my guard to that extent, if I could put you at that kind of risk—I won't accept that, I won't have it. Sooner or later I will make a mistake that puts you at risk of more than just embarrassment, I will make a mistake that costs you your life, and that is what I will _not_ accept, so yes, hate me if you want, tell everyone you know what a bastard I am, but you will do it while alive. Go on, get out of here."

But Hal was still just standing there. After a minute he put his hand to his forehead and held it there, and shut his eyes. The minutes stretched into more minutes, and still he stood there, motionless. Bruce watched him. "Hal," he said, after even more time had passed, and Hal had still not moved.

"Shhh," he said. He didn't open his eyes.

"You can't—"

_"Hush."_

So Bruce crossed his arms and waited there, in silence. Eventually Hal put his hand down, and opened his eyes. "Okay," he said. "It's gone."

"What's gone?"

"The urge to kill you. Try not to re-awaken it by moving or speaking." He took a deep breath and looked at Bruce, like he had just now noticed his presence. "Okay," he said. "Here's what is going to happen. Are you listening? No no—" holding up his hand, "please don't actually respond, that was rhetorical. From now on, what is going to happen is this. When you fuck up, you are going to walk through those doors, or any other doors into any other rooms we happen to be occupying, and you are going to say _Hal, I fucked up_. And I am going to say, _oh no! that is very disappointing, please don't do that again_. And you will say _all right, I'll try_. And then I will say, _cool, what would you like to order for dinner?_ Do you understand all that? Do you feel the need to rehearse, just in case? No—again, that was rhetorical, you are still not speaking."

It was Bruce's turn to study the marble floor. Hal was walking down the three steps back into the living room, to stand just in front of Bruce, close enough to touch. "You fucked up," he said gently. "It happens. Life goes on."

"Not always. A mistake like that can cost us our lives."

"So I guess you need to ask yourself what you want that life to look like."

This silence was longer than the first one, even. And in the middle of it, it came to him that Hal would wait it out, with him. After about thirty minutes of it Hal might wander off and order pizza, it was true, but he would bring his pizza back here and continue to sit and wait. He would wait through every silence, as long as Bruce needed him to. It caught him in the throat, unprepared. 

"I fucked up," he said, at last.

"Oh no," Hal said. "That is very disappointing. Please don't do that again."

"I—" Bruce's throat closed entirely, and he shut his eyes. "I'll try," he managed, a clenched whisper of sound. 

"Cool," Hal said. "I was actually thinking Thai tonight, because on the way over I noticed this take-out place about five blocks south of here. Is all the take-out in this neighborhood like ridiculously expensive? Because I don't feel like paying fifty smacks for a box of pad thai. Got any menus lying around?"

"In the kitchen, possibly," Bruce said, even though he was fairly sure it was a lie. He didn't know much about the penthouse kitchen and had ventured in there only rarely, and he couldn't imagine that Alfred, on his periodic visits to the penthouse, stuffed the drawers with Asian take-out menus, but anything was possible. 

"Which means no," Hal said, on his way to the kitchen. "I'm gonna go rummage then. Oh hey I forgot to tell you, what with all the _I am breaking up with you now_ drama," he said, sticking his head back around the corner. "But I've decided to branch out. I mean, filthy jack-off calls at work, that's kind of bush league, don't you think? Amateur hour. So I've decided to step up my game. Next time you're feeling a little bored, open up your phone, there's a little present waiting for you there."

He disappeared back around the corner to the kitchen, and Bruce reached for his phone, frowning. Sure enough, there was a message waiting for him. He opened his email. 

_Download movie?_ his phone asked, and he clicked yes. 

He gave a long slow smile of appreciation at the screen, as it unfolded in front of him. He glanced up to see Hal back in the doorway, watching him. 

"You're gonna want sound with that," he said.


End file.
